The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for equipping plug housings with fitted-out cable ends of a cable, wherein an equipping unit introduces the cable ends into cells of the plug housings in a specific cable sequence.
There is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,835,844 an equipping device in which cables fitted with electrical contacts are intermediately stored at both ends in a rotatable store. For reception of the cable ends, the store has two wheels equipped with cable clamps. A cable feeder transfers the finished state fitted-out cable to the store, wherein each cable end is received by a respective wheel cable clamp in the equipping sequence. While the first store is loaded by the cable feeder, a second rotatable store is emptied of finished cables by an equipping device. Thereafter, the second store is loaded and the first store is emptied. The equipping device includes two cable grippers movable in three directions, wherein one cable gripper feeds one end of each cable to one plug housing and the other cable gripper feeds the other end of each cable to another plug housing.
A disadvantage of this known device is that the mechanical construction in terms of control, with two stores and two equipping devices, is very complex and expensive.
Equipment for equipping plug housings is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,581 in which cables fitted with electrical contacts are intermediately stored at one end in a linear store. The leading cable end is introduced into a cell of the plug housing and the trailing cable end is intermediately stored in a cell of the linear store in accordance with the respective cable sequence of the plug housing. The trailing cable ends are then introduced in an ascending equipping sequence into the cells of the plug housing.
A disadvantage of this equipment is that the distances between the storage cells and the plug cells are large and thus the minimum cable length also has to be correspondingly large.